


tessellations by teludav

by rhodophoros



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Fluff and Angst, Guilt, Kuron is Shiro (Voltron)'s Clone, M/M, Post-Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 11:04:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16061804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodophoros/pseuds/rhodophoros
Summary: Testing theAtlas’new teludav has unexpected side effects. Keith gets another boyfriend. Clones are sad. Shiro achieves every narcissist’s dream.





	tessellations by teludav

“Allura?”

“Yes Captain?”

“Could you explain, if it’s not too much trouble, why there are two of me on the bridge?”

Allura blinked, her hands still on _Atlas’_ newly installed teludav pylons. “I—I don’t know. I thought the test went perfectly well, but, uh—”

“Do I get a say here?” asked Shiro. Other Shiro. Shiro 2? He was like an old Garrison recruitment photo, with black hair and two biological arms and no scar. Shiro, original Shiro, faintly remembered rows of violet tubes, and promptly dismissed the image.

“You know,” said Coran, ignoring Shiro 2, “this is just like something out of a holonovel. ‘The Teludav Tyrant.” He stood up from the help and whipped an accusing finger at Shiro 2 “You aren’t going to extract our brains to feed your multi-headed waxon, are you?”

Shiro 2 blinked. “No?” he said, and Coran deflated.

Then Iverson stood up. “Captain,” he said, “if I may advise. Even if this … duplicate means no harm, it’s Garrison policy to quarantine all potential threats.”

Before Shiro could respond, Shiro 2 spoke: “I’ll go. I think—” and at this his face fell, and Shiro felt his stomach follow it. “I think I’m Kuron.”

 

* * *

 

Kuron sat on his small cot in quarantine cell 3-F, his face perched into a nest of his fingers. It was strange, for Shiro, to see himself in duplicate, like the one-way acrylic glass window was a mirror into his past. It could have been right after Adam dumped him, Kuron looked so miserable, his forelock hanging limply over his cupped hands. The cell itself, a mix of beige and steel, did little to lift the mood.

“So he thinks he’s the clone?” said Keith, from Shiro’s side. He had taken the news remarkably well, after docking Black with _Atlas_ after the teludav test. His quiet “huh” had certainly been preferable to the other paladins’ yelling. “You believe him?”

“He doesn’t seem to be lying,” said Shiro, “and _Atlas’_ lie detection can’t find any signs of dishonesty. Allura and Coran think that the teludav’s temporal effects and the _Atlas’_ reliance on my quintessence caused some sort of ‘temporal backflip’ that just sort of,” Shiro flicked his wrist up “split us in two.”

“A ‘temporal backflip,’ huh?” Keith twisted his lips. “And you? How are you holding up?”

“Hm?”

One of Keith’s eyebrows raised. “Don’t play coy with me, Captain. You just got duplicated. I can’t—that couldn’t be easy for you.”

“For either of us, Keith. And—no, it’s weird. I feel—calmer. I think maybe—a lot of the guilt I used to carry, he took with him.”

Keith turned to look through the glass. Shiro saw his jaw tense and release. “The fight?”

Shiro sighed. “The fight, the Castle, Lotor’s escape. I—I can’t remember them anymore.” Keith turned to him with wide eyes. “I mean, I can, but I—it’s like remembering remembering. It doesn’t feel like I was … there, anymore.”

Keith inhaled, then exhaled, and turned back to the window. “He must be hurting,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“I think—“ Keith turned again to him, his eyes deep blue and glittering. “Should we go see him?”

Shiro smiled on an exhale, small and sad. “Yeah,” he said, “let’s go.

The door took Shiro’s handprint and personal code with a jarringly cheerful beep. Kuron looked up as they entered. They greeted him, a nod from Shiro and a quiet “hey” from Keith; he was silent in return, though his lips attempted a smile before it fell from his face. The grey of his eyes was dull, like melted, dirtied snow. He looked back down.

Shiro and Keith traded a look, then sat down on the bench opposite Kuron’s cot.

“Kur—” Shiro began, and then grimaced. “Actually, what—what would you like to be called?”

He shrugged. “Why not Kuron?”

“Well,” said Shiro, “it was the name Haggar gave you—us. I just, well, I never liked going by ‘Champion.’ I thought maybe you’d want to choose your own name.”

He stared at them.

“What about,” said Keith, “well, Shiro has white hair now, right? And you came back with black. What if we called you Kuro? Would that be alright?”

“I—I think I like that, actually,” said Kuro, and he smiled: small, but still there. “Thank you, Keith.”

Keith beamed. “As long as you like it, Kuro.”

“Well, Kuro,” said Shiro, “I’m sorry about sticking you in here. I know what it’s like to be put in quarantine just when you get home. We should get you cleared by tomorrow, at the latest.”

“It’s alright, I understand. It’s better than a preservation pod, at least.”

Keith snorted. “Oh God, now there’s two of you, aren’t there?”

They all chuckled, but it was half-hearted, limp.

“I’d like to ask, Kuro,” said Shiro, “what all do you remember? I seem to have … forgotten a lot of what happened from the second fight with Zarkon to being pulled from Black, and what’s there is foggy. What about you?”

Kuro swallowed. “I remember everything, sort of, but—I think the memories I know are yours, from before I ‘escaped,’ have gotten blurry. And the memories after—after the fight, those have gotten a little blurry too.”

“Well, I think some sort of memory loss is—”

Kuron cut in, “Shiro, I—what are you going to do with me?”

“I don’t understand, what do you mean?”

“I mean … I’m your clone, I’m—”

“Nonsense. I’m as much a clone as you are, at least physically. I was—I thought maybe you could stay on _Atlas,_ or if you wanted you could help with reconstruction on Earth. I’d offer to let you co-captain but,” Shiro gestured to his mechanical hand, “I don’t think Allura’s got another priceless royal heirloom to sacrifice. The choice is all yours, Kuro. But, uh, I was hoping,” he said, “I do need an XO, and with Keith leading Voltron … you get the picture.

Kuro sputtered. “I—you want me to be your second in command? Even after all I’ve done, everyone I’ve hurt?”

“That wasn’t you,” said Keith. “That was the witch.”

“But it was my hand, Keith! The last time I saw you, I—” His voice broke, and he stared at the scar.

“Kuro, I—” Keith stood up then, and walked to Kuro’s right, crouching to meet his eyes. Kuro lifted a trembling arm up to the left side of Keith’s face; it hung there until Keith brought his own slender hand to it and pressed Kuro’s to his cheek. Kuro gasped, and it was a small, quivering thing.

“I don’t blame you,” said Keith, firm even as his voice started to shake, “I’d never blame you, I—” Keith’s voice broke. He glanced, tremulous, at Shiro, who watched his jaw clench.

“Kuro,” said Shiro, “do you remember what Keith said to you, before you both fell?”

“Of course,” Kuro gasped, “I—but—”

Shiro stopped him with a raised hand. “Well, later, when I went through this—this guilt, or maybe you did, or we did, in this body, Keith—Keith said he’d love, he’d loved every version of me.”

Shiro remembered it, whispered to him in the dark of Black’s belly; he remembered Keith’s voice rasping in the quiet abiding night of space; he remembed Keith kissing him, an imminence finally come to being. He remembered as they came to know each other, again, after an age apart, with gasping mouths hot against skin and blood rising to meet them.

“Every version. Including you, Kuro.”

Kuro inhaled, and held it, and so did Keith, who looked to Shiro with wide, questioning eyes.

Shiro smiled, and understood, and dipped his head.

Keith exhaled finally, shakily, and took Kuro’s head into his hands, and he closed his eyes, and he pressed a reverant kiss to Kuro’s brow. Shiro watched as Kuro’s eyes screwed shut and tears loosed down his cheeks. Keith leaned down, then, and he and Kuro shared a blind, shaking breath, and he pressed a kiss to Kuro’s mouth, and his own tears fell.

Kuro’s breath hitched on a sob, and Keith pulled back and tucked him into the crook of his neck, wrapping his arms around his broad shoulders as they shook.

Shiro stood, and moved to press a soft, long kiss to the crown of Keith’s head, and then he squeezed Kuron’s shoulder. As he stepped out he set the cell’s window to opaque, and he left the two to their embrace.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://rhodophoros.tumblr.com)


End file.
